The Fruits of Autumn

Suddenly, Colorado has noticed that it's Fall. The leaves are changing, the days are getting chilly, and E's evening walks are getting darker. For me, this means it is time to start baking and cooking again. I never really want to cook in the summer, which works out okay because Ray is usually pretty happy to grill. But now that it's cooler, it's time to get cooking. I'm eyeballing that slow cooker and dreaming of sloppy joes, soups, and roasts. But we're not quite there yet.

In the meantime, I have this:

I think you should try to guess, first.

We're eating a lot more fruit and vegetables with E around, so I decided we needed to try a CSA this year. Ray decided we should get a fruit share, which I'm thankful for after seeing fennel for the fourth week in a row in the vegetable shares. What does one do with that much fennel?

Fortunately, I do know what to do with apples. We're getting a peck of vegetables a week. Eamon recognizes the white bags and excitedly yells "apple, apple"... which unfortunately means "peach", and they're out of season now. But he loved the peaches and nectarines, and now he's happy with the plums. We still have a lot of apples, more than is probably even healthy for three people to eat in one week (and this is a "single" share!)  Thanks to Jana and her friends the Meyers, we got to go to an awesome apple picking party, and we got even MORE apples. So I've been making a lot of applesauce for the freezer, along with some baking. Jana pointed out that you can throw other things into the applesauce... which resulted in the picture above. The top pot is strawberry mango applesauce. The bottom pot got the plums that were about to go over the hill. For once, I didn't touch the color at all. That is some shocking applesauce! (So, is that what you guessed?)

Halloween color aside, it is darn good!

?

I'm not sure who this boy is that Ray is taking with him, but could someone tell me where my baby went?

Still here!

The Vikings are on a bye week. Grading tests has sucked my week into a pit of pitness, and I haven't posted anything fun since Tuesday. Ray was flying Wed-Thurs, so that didn't help. Then, we spent this weekend running errands and having fun with a certain cute little boy.

Suffice it to say, I have no pictures for you here. We're still trying to get out as much as possible, but I feel like you've all seen the child coated in ice cream or running about the park, and I have no great way to show you the fun bike ride to get the ice cream or get to the park (although perhaps you would like video of him in the garage, torn between his trike ("bike? bike?) and the bike trailer ("hat? hat?" - as in, his helmet)?). E now slides down even the twisty slides with utter confidence, more of a daredevil than I was at five.  We're letting him take some of the (SHORT!) falls, hoping he'll start to notice that gravity is universal, even for him. He turned 20 months old this week, but he's two in a lot of ways - he wants to do it all, he can't express it well enough or do it as well as he wants, and that makes him frustrated and tantrumy.  I'm learning to get him to take a couple of breaths and slow down. Even in his toddlerness, he's still adorable and awesome, which means the hardest part is not laughing, because it's a dead serious matter to him (now if I could just figure out what "it" is).

Things are good. Change keeps coming, but I'm still too superstitious to put it in words here. Ray is flying, and busy, which is good, except that he's not home some. I'm working, but less that I have been, which is nice, except for weeks like this one where I have to work back at the old schedule and I'm not adapted to it any more. Eamon is busy taking over the world (or at least learning that he can reach more of it if he stands ON the chair), which is... eek.

I will get more up here. Please keep checking back. Until then: we're still here!